Boko Haram attack leaves 2 drivers dead in Borno

Borno's state commissioner for Agriculture, Muhammed Dilli has revealed that two tractor drivers have been killed by Boko Haram insurgents in Jere Local Government Area of Borno.

Alhaji Dilli told newsmen in Maiduguri that the insurgents attacked the tractor operators while working on a farm “in the past few days’’.

The commissioner said that the upsurge in the Boko Haram insurgents was a major challenge facing the agriculture sector in the state.

Dilli added that thousands of farmers had returned to the farms in the liberated areas, in spite of the insurgents’ attacks.

Dilli listed the slain tractor operators as Kashim Bukar and Shettima Mustapha.

However, he said, most of them could not go to the farms for fear of the insurgents’ attacks.

“The state government had procured farm inputs and modern agricultural equipment but it could not distribute them to farmers due to the insurgency,’’ he said.

The commissioner also disclosed that the state government had spent over N40 billion on agriculture development programmes in the past six years.